


Come to the Dance

by LavenderTheMenace



Series: Taking Pride [2]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Ballet, Ballet Dancer Peter Parker, F/F, Gen, M/M, Peter Parker's over-developed sense of responsibility, Slice of Life, auditions, sneaky friends are sneaky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 12:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderTheMenace/pseuds/LavenderTheMenace
Summary: In the life of Peter Parker, things were going good. He had the whole Spider-Man thing down pretty well, his grades were rising again, he had even finished a few college applications already. So why did his best friend and his boyfriend have to gang up on him about dance?Ballet AU and MCU/Comics fusion.





	Come to the Dance

“You can’t be serious.” 

Peter Parker, sixteen, stared across the table, valiantly ignoring the hysterical realization that, no, MJ and Ned were not kidding. In fact, MJ wasn’t even looking at him, she was looking at her nails and - wow, wait, she was still talking, why was she still saying things?

“... Got it, loser?”

“Um,” said Peter, eloquently. “What?”

MJ rolled her eyes, and next to Peter, Ned squeezed his hand. Peter was pretty sure that was supposed to be comforting. 

“We signed you up for auditions,” MJ told him. “At the SHIELD Ballet Company.”

“I’m- we’re - I’m sixteen,” Peter protested weakly. “You couldn’t have signed me up without a parent or guardian’s permission.” That was going to be the end of this, right?

Not if MJ had anything to say about it. She smirked, looking for all the world like the cat that got the canary. “Like May, whose signature I’ve been forging for you on permission slips since eighth grade?”

Peter’s stomach dropped out from under him. He should have known his bad habit of forgetting to get things signed until the last minute would come back to bite him. But he never would have thought it would bite him like  _ this _ .

SHIELD Ballet Company was… a Big Deal™, capitals absolutely necessary. The attached ballet school, the Carter Academy of Dance, was almost moreso. Its graduates were almost guaranteed a place at the ballet company of their choice around the world. They studied under  _ Natasha Romanova _ , the Soviet ballet darling-turned-spy-turned-American ballet darling.

In short, even auditioning to the school - in particular as an older dancer, in one’s teens - was a big deal. One only did so if they knew they’d get in, if they had years of practice under their belt and the confidence of G-d to boot. Neither of which described Peter Benjamin Parker.

Freshman year of high school, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider while looking for a bathroom during an otherwise unremarkable field trip. One week later, he avoided the hospital only by virtue of not having health insurance, which turned out to be a good thing, since two weeks later he found he no longer needed his thick prescription glasses, was suddenly quite bendy and, oh yes,  _ had spider powers _ .

Said bendiness and spider powers were also what caused Peter to start dancing.

It had been MJ’s - Michelle, back then - idea. She had grown up doing ballet and tap classes, so figured they would be a good way for Peter to test his newfound abilities without, quote, “killing himself under a barbell at the gym like some dudebro who thinks he can lift.”

As it happened, Peter, previously painfully uncoordinated, found himself suddenly with the grace flexibility to pull off sets MJ had practiced for weeks at a time. The newfound strength, too, helped a lot. It was, all in all, a heady turnaround for a boy who had never been able to finish a lap in gym class without wishing for an inhaler before.

And Peter  _ loved it. _

Really, he did. He started dropping in on classes with MJ and her girlfriend, Liz, almost as soon as he realized dance was something he could now do. He practiced with his friend whenever she asked, imitated routines from YouTube, freestyled with MJ when they got tired of skateboarding at the park. 

But Peter had meant what he said, when he first met Mr. Stark. Sure, with his new abilities he could join the football team (dance on stage) and be a star. But it wouldn’t be fair. He had a gift, and he had to be responsible with it. Because of it. Even if it meant he didn’t go for the Youth America Grand Prix with Liz, or audition for lead roles in ballet recitals. He didn’t audition for roles at all. It wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be responsible.

And it wouldn’t be right for him to  _ audition for the Carter Academy _ .

None of this bothered MJ in the slightest. She didn’t even pretend to listen to Peter protest and list all the reasons it would be a bad idea for Spider Man to dance under the watchful eye of the Black Widow, for Peter Parker to take advantage of his powers when other people trained for years and years to do what he could do, now.

The girl didn’t even seem to hear him while she packed away her physics homework and stood to leave. The closest she came to acknowledging Peter’s protests was another eyeroll and a parting comment, “Please, it’s not like guys don’t get away with starting dance a decade later than women do, anyway. Saturday. Three o’ clock.  _ Be there. _ ”

With that, MJ was gone. MJ was gone and Peter just had Ned to turn to, who held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. 

“It was all her idea, dude,” Ned told him. “Except for the part where I suggested it. And told May you’d be there. And stuff. Yeah. Um. Legos?”

Peter just stared at the other boy. “You are literally the  _ worst _ boyfriend.”

\---

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This is the second in a series of short fics (which may or may not be continued as chaptered fics) featuring queer characters across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum in honor of Pride 2019. Let me know what you thought, and feel free to give me requests!
> 
> \- Lav


End file.
